You have missed work on account of being ill, but instead of going to the “normal doctor,” you go to your chiropractor for treatment. You then show up to work with a doctor’s note from your chiropractor, and your boss laughs but accepts it anyway.

You realize shortly before you’re supposed to leave for work that you need to fit in your second round of homeopathic remedies for the day. You had already brushed your teeth before taking them, and you forget to brush your teeth again before leaving for work. Consequently, your breath smells like alcohol your entire shift at work. Oops.

You’re tired of dentists giving you a hard time about not wanting to use fluoride, so you are thrilled when you find an “alternative dentist” over an hour away who is okay with your choice to avoid fluoride and who also knows the proper, safe way to remove mercury fillings. You gladly drive the long distance instead of going to the “fluoride dentist” located five minutes away from your house.

You determine that the cheap water filters from supermarkets aren’t sufficient at removing the contaminants from your city water. You purchase a water filter that costs $500+ and also needs the parts to be replaced every few years for hundreds more dollars. On that note, you also purchase a special, expensive shower filter because why would you only filter the water you drink and not the water that cleans your body?

Several people at work have been sick. You don’t want to catch what’s going around, and you also want to protect your other healthy co-workers. You bring your diffuser during your shifts and diffuse Thieves oil into your office’s air to kill the germs. People laugh when you tell them the story behind Thieves oil, but then they decide they like the smell and ask why you didn’t bring the diffuser when you forget to bring it.

It’s been so long since you’ve visited your family doctor (because you regularly visit your nutritionist/chiropractor/etc.) that when you change insurance plans, you have to call and make sure you’re still considered a patient at that office so that you have someone to list as your main doctor on the insurance paperwork.

You always go with the health insurance option that covers as much alternative care as possible, such as chiropractic treatment and acupuncture. That way you’re at least getting some use out of your health insurance each year if you end up not visiting your family doctor.

You are sick enough to decide to visit your family doctor after years of avoidance. You are assigned prescriptions, pick them up and take them home, and read the side effects before ingesting. You then decide that the potential side effects sound worse than what you currently have and decide to wait things out a little longer to see if you can get better without the prescriptions.